


Parallel

by morganya



Category: Actor RPF, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy RPF
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-06-21
Updated: 2004-06-21
Packaged: 2017-10-10 13:40:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/pseuds/morganya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyan likes to think he's got a secret twin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parallel

  
Kyan's been hearing the comparisons since he graduated high school. After _Bill and Ted_ came out, his friends kept asking him to say, "Whoa," and "Bogus," and then laughed hysterically when he complied. He didn't mind.

When _Speed_ came out, he heard, "Pop quiz, hotshot," at least once every day. When _The Matrix_ came out, his friends called him The One. He didn't mind.

In his more self-indulgent moods, he stands in front of the mirror, searching for the similarities that everyone tells him are there. He creates Keanu from memory and holds himself against it.

Superficially, they're both thin. Dark-haired, dark-eyed. Kyan thinks Keanu might be a bit taller, but on the movie screen, everyone looks fifty feet tall, so that's nothing to concern himself with. Long faced, broad jaws, big chins. Keanu's nose a bit broader than his, Kyan's lower lip a little thinner. Eyes deep-set, almost Asian cast. He'd read somewhere that Keanu actually was part Chinese or Hawaiian or something, and that feels more exotic and interesting than his own black Irish. Not identical, just similar enough to make jokes about, or make someone do a double-take in the right light.

Kyan likes thinking that someone out in the world looks like him, someone who gets talked about and noticed. A secret twin. He likes that.

*****

The after-party is crowded with people, and Kyan's been playing Spot-the-Celebrity with Carson, huddled together in the restaurant corner, the both of them trying to look like they're having a serious conversation. Carson leans over his drink and inclines his head towards Kyan's ear, while Kyan frowns intently and nods.

"It's like an upscale Romper Room," Carson says. "I see Halle, and Denzel, and Ashton, and Demi..."

"Look at Demi's hair," Kyan says. "I mean, look at Demi, period. Young men agree with her."

"Well. I think that's always the case." Carson smirked at him.

"Probably. Probably."

"Look, it's your twin," Carson said.

"Where?"

"By the bar. Don't look."

"Well, I can't..."

"Don't be obvious," Carson says. "Okay, look now."

Kyan looks. Keanu is leaning against the bar, dark brown beer bottle in his left hand, almost invisible in black suit and sunglasses (everyone in show business wears sunglasses, like gangsters). His hair is longer and shaggier than it was in the last publicity photo Kyan saw of him.

"He's got a beard now," Kyan says.

"Nothing gets past you, does it?" Carson says. "Why don't you go say hello?"

"Yeah, and say what? 'Hi, everyone tells me I look like you?'"

Carson gestures at the buffet behind him. "Why don't you bring him some shrimp?"

"Carson, I am not going to play waiter in front of Keanu Reeves."

"Why not?"

"Well, because I'm not."

"But he could be your soulmate," Carson says, and as sometimes happens, Kyan's not sure if he's kidding. "You could move to Canada with him and play ice hockey or whatever they do up there. I'm not up on my cultural facts. Maybe you could spend long days in bed saying, 'Whoa,' to each other."

"I'm pretty sure he's straight, Carson."

"Oh. Well, you could at least give him a fun photo op."

"Carson, I don't think..." Kyan thinks that the possibility of making an ass of himself in front of Keanu is greater than he'd like it to be. He thinks that he's spent too much time thinking about Keanu to really have anything to say. He thinks this is a bad idea.

"Oh, look." Carson picks up his wine glass and drains it in one swallow. "I finished my drink. Be an angel and go get me another."

He could say, "Get your own drink," but Carson bought the last round and he feels silly objecting, so he gets up and moves through the crowd, and it's a show business crowd so it takes a while to get there, everyone wanting to network with him and he hasn't any idea what they're actually saying to him.

He wonders if this'll turn out to be like _Back to the Future_, where if he meets Keanu, it'll cause a huge rift in the universe, because they were never supposed to meet at all. But this isn't a movie.

He wedges himself into a spot by the bar, and the bartender is otherwise occupied with some young blonde starlet in a spangly halter top two feet away. Keanu is beside him, sipping his drink, and he smells of bay rum and clove.

"Hi," Kyan says.

He hears sarcastic clapping in the back of his head. _Smooth._

Keanu turns to look at him, seemingly not noticing the awkwardness. "Hi."

The universe doesn't seem to bend back on itself, so Kyan says, "Liked you in _Something's Gotta Give_, man."

"Thanks," Keanu says absently. Kyan wonders if he's thinking, _Great, I can't even have a drink without being harassed,_ or, _Wow, he liked_ Something's Gotta Give, or something else entirely.

Keanu puts his empty glass on the bar, blinks at Kyan. "You have that show." His voice is an amalgamation of long, soft Canadian vowels and breathy Californian pauses, with the trace of countries even farther away half-buried underneath it.

"Yeah. I'm Kyan Douglas," he says. And, stupidly, "My friend -" He starts to gesture back towards Carson, but Carson's disappeared somewhere, without waiting for his drink, probably out bumming cigarettes off the latest flavor of the month. "He's not here now."

"Oh, okay," Keanu says as though he understands. "You're not going to get a drink here for a while, I don't think." He tilts his head towards the bartender.

"Yeah," Kyan says. "I guess he's pretty busy."

"Well, he's not really. Just, you know. Yeah." Keanu puts his empty bottle on the bar. "Good to meet you."

"Yeah. You too."

Keanu moves into the crowd. Kyan waits for the bartender to notice him.

He brings Carson's drink back to the table, planning to drink it himself if Carson doesn't reappear. Except Carson likes this sickly-sweet merlot that tastes like it should be poured over ice cream, and if Kyan drank it, it wouldn't be revenge so much as punishment.

Carson comes through the crowd just as Kyan puts the glass down on the table, reaching over his head and snagging it. "So what's the scoop?"

"There is no scoop," Kyan says. "We said hello."

Carson looks disappointed. "But I thought you two could be besties."

"I don't think this is the best place to become, uh, besties, Carson."

"Stranger things have happened," Carson says. "Remember what I said? Soulmates."

"For goodness' sake, Carson, he's not my soulmate."

"You're a New Age guy. You should be more open-minded about these things."

Kyan thinks that if fate had wanted him to find a soulmate, it would have happened by now. Best not to fuck around with fate. "I just don't think it's meant to be, Carson."

"You've become so cynical in your old age." Carson sips his wine.

At the end of the night, Kyan walks out of the nightclub and goes around the back to smoke a cigarette, figuring he'll catch a cab home. Carson's managed to finagle his way into some other party, some other place, and Kyan had to use all his strength of will to resist the invitation to go with him. Carson's power of persuasion is considerable.

The night air feels soft on his face; someone's playing Spanish music inside the apartment building across the way. Kyan fishes his cigarettes out of his pocket.

There's a tiny glowing speck in front of him, a figure half-illuminated by a cigarette. It takes a moment for Kyan to recognize Keanu, so dark he's almost a part of the sky. Kyan thinks, _Maybe this is fate._

"Hello again," Kyan says, lighting his own cigarette. "Nice night, isn't it?"

"Hmm? Oh, hey. Kevin?"

"Kyan."

"Right." Keanu doesn't bother to look embarrassed. Kyan thinks that he probably doesn't even need to learn anyone's name anymore, because he's always surrounded by people who know him.

"So, are you heading out?" Kyan asks.

Keanu shrugs. "Not yet. Got a three o'clock flight tomorrow, where am I gonna go?"

Kyan's not sure if he understands but he nods anyway. "Mind if I join you?"

Keanu shrugs again, but doesn't say no, so Kyan walks the few steps across the concrete and stands next to him. Sure enough, Keanu's a few inches taller, 5'10, 5'11 at a push, and Kyan feels abruptly like he's back in high school.

"You know, I hear all the time that I look like you," he says, because really there's nothing else to say.

"Really?" Keanu tilts his head, studying Kyan by the light of the cigarette. "I have to tell you, I don't see it."

Kyan's mouth works itself into a smile. He wishes he hadn't spent so much time thinking about how cool it would be, having a secret twin. The real world doesn't have much in it that flatters illusions. "Yeah. It's just something I've heard."

"Look," Keanu says. "Check it out."

"What?"

"Stars," Keanu answers absently. He puts a casual hand on Kyan's shoulder and turns him to look. "See?"

Kyan looks at the sky, at the tiny glittering lights spread out over their heads. "Nice."

"Light travels slowly," Keanu says. "See, everything we're seeing now? Started ten million years ago, a million miles away. We're looking at something that happened years before either of us were born."

Kyan keeps watching the sky. He thinks of planets orbiting suns, of galaxies far beyond their own. He thinks that somewhere there might be two people just like them, standing in the dark and watching the light from a thousand dead suns flare and fade above them.


End file.
